Maricopa County, Arizona, Sheriff Joe Arpaio has planned a particularly economical meal for the roughly 7,500 to 10,000 inmates in his jail system this Thanksgiving.

The meal comes in at a cost of just 56 cents per inmate, and its main entrée will be 24-cent vegetarian turkey soy casserole. Arpaio tweeted the Thanksgiving menu Wednesday morning.

“Hope the inmates give thanks for this special meal being served in the jails tomorrow," Arpaio's tweet said.

(Tweet from @RealSheriffJoe on Twitter)

Thanksgiving menu is all set! Hope the inmates give thanks for this special meal being served in the jails tomorrow.

Now, I'm not sure that the cost of the meal is the issue. I'm not even going to address the vegetarian aspect of this slop. What I do take umbrage to is that Arpaio would actually have the audacity to boast that the inmates should give thanks for this cruel treatment.

These people are convicts for a reason. So they have to make restitution as the courts have seen fit. But ridicule and undernourishment aren't part of the deal.

We have an Eighth Amendment to the Constitution: "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment" which also appears in Article Five of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations General Assembly.

Maybe someone should read this to the mad Sheriff:

Arpaio touts his accomplishments in providing inmates with “the cheapest meals in the U.S.” by feeding inmates “only twice daily, to cut the labor costs of meal delivery." Arpaio has “even stopped serving them salt and pepper” to save taxpayer money, according to the bio.

Twice a day? Normal is three. And no salt or pepper? Really, now, Joe? And what's with forcing vegetarianism on the entire population?

If the story ended there, it would be bad enough. But this is Mean Joe Arpaio -- the toughest sheriff in the west.

He also announced in March a plan to charge inmates $1 for their meals, according to ABC15. "Everybody else has to pay for their food, why should [inmates] get freebies?" Arpaio said.

He's going to charge a dollar for a meal that cost, by his own estimation, roughly half of that. And that's for a special holiday meal. The regular slop must cost even less. Who's taking home the profits... Sheriff Joe?